Apple is conducting its Apple Watch event at San Francisco and the company's Senior VP Jeff Williams has just announced another tool called the ResearchKit. Apple worked with Stanford, Penn Medicine,

Apple is conducting its Apple Watch event at San Francisco and the company’s Senior VP Jeff Williams has just announced another tool called the ResearchKit. Apple worked with Stanford, Penn Medicine, Weill Cornell, Michael J Fox Foundation and many others to build a software framework made especially for medical research.

The ResearchKit essentially turns your iPhone and HealthKit into powerful diagnostic tools. It collects data which is instrumental in medical research for many diseases like Parkinsons, breast cancer and even asthama. One example the company gave is a study it’s performing for Parkinsons disease that asks the user to perform quick tests on their phone to help diagnose it. Another app is for Asthma which is aimed at helping those affected manage when to use their inhaler and understanding how often it’s used. An app for diabetes research was also created in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital.

Keeping privacy in mind, Apple lets users decide which data to share and which to hide. The ResearchKit is an open source platform with the first five apps being released today. The ResearchKit software will be released to the public next month.